


All My Little Words

by qodarkness



Series: Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin [9]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 69 Love Songs, Another piece of the Theon/Sansa puzzle, F/F, F/M, Healing, Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin Universe, Magnetic Fields, Robb Stark really is a hopeless romantic, Songfic, Sudden quiet realisations, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27037264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qodarkness/pseuds/qodarkness
Summary: ”Look, I haven’t listened to any advice Robb has given me since the time he tried to convince me that the Long Bridge was an independent constitutional monarchy with a duly elected Bridge King just before my exam on Volantis political systems. The shit,” added Theon, amiably. “But he might just be right on this love thing.”
Relationships: Sansa Stark/Shae, Theon Greyjoy/Ros, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Series: Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1581478
Kudos: 10





	All My Little Words

It was, quite simply, a glorious day. Sansa tried to think of a less cliched way to describe it, but the sun shone in a sky of limitless blue, tiny fluffy clouds almost artfully arranged to intensify the dazzling cerulean sky. The temperature was perfect, warm enough to be comfortable in summer clothes but not so hot that you felt like you might burn. Birds sang in the nearby trees, which gleamed like emeralds. Softly perfect music drifted across the lawns, accompanied by the wafted scent of something Ned was cooking on the barbecue which smelled blissful. It wouldn’t have surprised Sansa that much if a fawn had stepped out of the shrubbery or everyone had spontaneously broken into song; it felt that much like she was in some kind of perfect animated children’s movie and that small bluebirds would shortly take up arranging her hair. 

Instead, a hand slipped beneath her top, warm against the skin of her waist. For a moment Sansa stiffened, but then realised the hand was tiny and soft and she melted back into the touch. 

“Tall girl,” said Shae, moving up beside her. “Beautiful girl. On a beautiful day.” 

Sansa smiled at Shae then, leaned down to taste Shae’s cherry lips with her own. “Pretty girl,” she replied, “I thought you’d got lost.”

Shae rolled her eyes the tiniest amount. “Your mother,” she replied. “She wanted to ask again whether any of my family were in town. Whether I would bring them to meet you all.”

Sansa smiled, a little ruefully. “She worries,” she said. “Between all of us kids, we haven’t had the best of luck with relationships. She’s evidence-gathering, I think. Making sure you aren’t going to turn out to be another monster ensnaring me.”

Shae flung her arms wide, dramatically, as she did everything. “Do I look like a monster?” she asked. “Come to eat you with my,” she smiled widely, “sharp teeth.”

Sansa tilted her head at her girlfriend. “You look like a butterfly,” she said softly. The softly floating sleeves of Shae’s top made multi-coloured waves across her out-stretched arms. “A beautiful butterfly.” 

Shae’s smile widened and she dropped her arms, caught Sansa’s fingers in her own. “Perhaps I shall eat you,” she murmured. “Just not with my sharp teeth,” and Sansa felt herself blushing. 

She was saved from having to respond by Theon emerging from the house, waving at her and wandering over. “Shae,” he nodded. “Do you know where Jon and Ygritte are?” he asked Sansa. “Robb wants me to get the drinks fridge sorted, but if they’re not coming, I can leave out that weird blackberry stuff Ygritte drinks.”

“They got called in to the surgery,” replied Sansa. “Somebody’s retriever ate something it shouldn’t have - like fifteen novelty footballs or something - and Dr Wolkan thought it’d be good for them to assist on the operation. Help with their exams. Jon said something about getting here later in the day, maybe the afternoon. Also something about bringing the x-rays home to show Ghost as an object lesson in what a dog shouldn’t eat, no matter how much it wants to.”

Theon grinned. “Midsummer’s Eve and he gets to spend his day rummaging around in dog guts. Sounds very Snow.”

Sansa snorted. “At least it’ll just be gross, not maudlin.”

“Look, his mope factor is down by at least half since he got together with Ygritte. But the gross factor is up at least twenty percent since they went to vet school.” Theon contemplated the sky for a moment. “Which is probably about an eighty percent improvement on his previous personality overall,” and laughed when Sansa hit him on the shoulder. 

“Speaking of missing people,” said Sansa. “Where’s Ros?”

Theon’s expression sobered suddenly. “She’s rostered on at the shelter,” he said. “Holidays are always… shit. Really, really shit. I think they’ve got four women they’re trying to get placements for already.”

“You’re not helping?” Sansa asked and Theon shook his head. 

“They don’t like having men around the shelter on days like today.” Theon grimaced. “It’s normally pretty... fraught.”

Sansa took a deep breath. “Yeah, I get that,” she said softly. She understood; she remembered how much she had dreaded holidays with Joffrey, when he was home all day and there was no escape at all.

“She should be here for lunch,” said Theon. “It’s starting around two, right?”

Sansa nodded. “Oh hey,” she added, looking to turn to a more cheerful topic. “Did you hear congratulations are in order? Shae got accepted into the corps at the Three Daughters troupe.”

Theon turned a broad smile on the slight, dark-haired woman at Sansa’s side. “Well done,” he said, admiringly. “I’m sure you’ll be a star.”

Shae laughed. “I hope not,” she said. “I am just meant to be part of the crowd in the corps. But,” she walked her fingers up invisible steps in the air. “I start to climb the ladder, at least.” 

“If Sansa tells us when you’re on stage, I’m sure we’ll all buy tickets. And there’s about three thousand Stark relatives, so it’ll be sure to be a hit,” said Theon and then tilted his head at a shout from the pool. “King Robb summons me,” he said, exaggeratedly. “The Young Wolf probably wants a beer. I suspect he wants an Ironborn to confirm that the sun is over the yardarm somewhere in this world.” He gave a flourishing bow at Sansa and Shae and headed over towards the pool, where Robb was splashing with Bran, Rickon and the Reeds. 

“You will really come? If I dance on stage? Even if I am just…” Shae waved her expressive hands around for a moment, trying to think of something, “teapot,” she said finally and Sansa turned astonished eyes on her. 

“Of course,” she said and Shae laughed. 

“I am not used to people who think dancing is…” she paused. “My family did not like it. That I wanted to dance. It is not thought… respectable in Lorath.”

“Well, you came to Winterfell to do a Bachelor of Contemporary Dance. If there’s a degree for it, I think it definitely counts as respectable,” said Sansa and smiled at Shae. 

They had met in a History of Textiles course, Sansa taking it as part of the Arts half of her Arts/Law double degree. They had bonded at first over their discovery that King’s Landing was the site of the worst memories for both of them. Then, after an evening drinking margaritas and bad-mouthing the denizens of the South’s capital, Sansa had been vaguely astonished to find Shae’s coral-pink lips tasted like cherries beneath her own. For almost the first time since Joffrey, Sansa had felt the stirring of lust in her belly and the older woman had seemed to know exactly how to follow Sansa’s half-confused cues, going only as far and as fast as Sansa had wanted. Her hands and mouth were soft and tender and delicate, the opposite of Joffrey’s harshness. It had taken several weeks of quiet coaxing and halts to proceedings when Sansa had frozen in panic, but at last Sansa had let Shae undress her in the moonlight that streamed through her flat’s bedroom window and then use those delicate fingers and cherry-flavoured lips to bring Sansa to several shattering orgasms. Shae had held Sansa afterwards as she had wept in memory of other times, then proceeded to make Sansa shyly laugh as she taught her how to reciprocate until Shae finally fell apart beneath Sansa’s hands and mouth. They had been together ever since. 

So Sansa reached forward now and brushed a dark strand of hair from where it was caught on Shae’s cheek and then kissed her mouth softly. “Theon’s right,” she said, “you will be great. And if your family isn’t smart enough to know that…”

It was almost, but not quite a question. Shae didn’t speak about her family. At all. Or her life in Lorath. Only in the most oblique terms and never favourably. She would laugh if Sansa asked too much. “I am a butterfly,” she would say. “There I was… caterpillar. But now I am something else and I fly away from them,” and Sansa couldn’t get any more than that from her. 

“Time for swim, I think,” said Shae, evading the topic as always. She nodded at the pool as Theon walked back past them, several plastic cups of beer in his hand (Ned’s rules about no glass in the pool was absolute). “Your boy says the sun is over the yardarm. Some wine and swim, pretty girl.” 

Sansa smiled. “Sounds like a good idea. And I can stop Theon from trying to drown Robb. He keeps saying it’s to cheer him up since he broke up with Jeyne, but I think they just like pretending they’re still ten years old.”

*****

It had been a glorious morning in the pool, dipping in and out as the heat had demanded, Sansa and Shae mostly out when the others had grown too boisterous, Ned and Catelyn dropping in on occasion between cooking the kind of epic feast that they seemed to enjoy making for the extended family. Jon and Ygritte had made it home around noon and had thrilled Bran and Rickon with their extensively gory description of the life-saving operation they’d helped with in the morning, which the older family members had firmly noped out on (they didn’t really mind, Sansa had told Shae and it had been interesting, but there had been a lot of operations to talk about recently and while it never seemed to pall for the younger boys, the rest of them would have been happy to never hear the words ‘intestine’ or ‘haemorrhage’ ever again). Slowly others had filtered in, mostly their parent’s friends - the Umbers, the Manderlys, the Karstarks, the Cerwyns and even Uncle Benjen who had come down from The Wall and had stolen Jon and Ygritte from them for a while as they caught up on the gossip from up north. 

The pool had filled with a few more of the younger generation and Robb had ended up organising a vigorous game of water volleyball. Sansa and Shae and Theon had stepped out, along with Meera Reed and they sat together in the shallow water of the pool’s steps, cheering Bran on as he refereed with a truly impressive solemnity, disturbed only by the fact that he always ruled in Jojen’s favour on any call and refused to be swayed by threats or cajoling from his older brother. 

They were chatting amiably when Theon looked up as someone walked round the edge of the pool behind Sansa and his face lit up, a smile unfurling across his mobile mouth.

“Hello, Ros,” said Sansa, without looking and Theon glanced down at her. 

“That obvious?” he asked and Sansa nodded and smiled. 

“That obvious, Theon,” she confirmed and then he was stepping out of the pool, catching the hands of the attractive redhead who stood at the top of the steps, his mouth brushing hers lightly. 

“You okay?” he asked, because Ros looked tired and she sighed and then nodded. 

“Bit rough this morning,” she said. “Don’t want to talk about it now. Maybe just a wine and sitting in the pool,” she said and Theon nodded. 

“You can get changed in the back bedroom,” he said. “I’ll get you a wine and a towel while you do.” 

They were back a few minutes later, a wine in Ros’s hand, a juice in Theon’s. He helped her down the step and she sat down in the water, arched her back luxuriously at the feel of it, then leaned into Theon’s side. 

In a way, Ros was everything Sansa might have expected in the first woman Theon had seriously fallen for and, in a way, she was everything you wouldn’t have expected. Nearly ten years older than him, she had arrived to work at the shelter in Winterfell as a fragile shell of a woman, every ounce of confidence and self-esteem beaten out of her by the man she had fled King’s Landing to escape. It had been a story too familiar that she’d told Theon, in snippets over coffee together. The man had been her lover, then her abuser, her owner, her pimp and finally one day, when she’d done… something (so much the same story, too many rules, always changing, always being broken, no matter how hard you tried) he’d nearly become her murderer. It was only that the nurse in Emergency had slipped her Brienne’s number while she was recovering from the stab wounds he’d inflicted, that had let Ros escape and make it to Winterfell and safety. 

And coffee had slowly become lunches and then dinner and then what happened after dinner and now Ros leaned into Theon’s side in the pool, the picture again of an elegant, sophisticated, clever woman, with a side helping of serious sass. She smiled up at him as they clinked plastic cups and his face positively shone as he smiled back at her. 

But some things would never heal, thought Sansa, as she looked at Ros’s swimsuit, its bright blue tones that concealed all of her chest and neck, set off against Theon’s dark rash vest. There would always be scars. 

Her thoughts were interrupted as Robb splashed his way over to retrieve the ball, grinned a hello at Ros. “Can’t you come and help me, Theon?” he asked. “My side’s getting creamed. Knew I should have got Jojen on my team if Bran was going to ref. And Gendry and Arya aren’t getting in from Braavos until after six, so Smalljon Umber is kicking my arse with the height advantage. C’mon, man,” he pleaded. 

“Nah,” smirked Theon. “You should have better timing, Robb. Asked me before Ros got here. I mean the chance to try and kick Umber’s arse is a pretty good incentive, but you missed your window.”

Robb rolled his eyes. “Love,” he said, allowing a little of his grumpiness at being so recently dumped to colour his voice. “You’ve gone soft, Greyjoy. Never thought  _ you’d _ turn down a chance to kick Smalljon’s arse,” and he stormed off dramatically (if not at all seriously) in a wave of water and bubbles.

Theon laughed and then grinned across the pool steps at Sansa. “Who ever thought Robb would be grumpy about being romantic,” he said. “He’s always falling in love. He was always telling me to fall in love. And now...” Theon shrugged. 

Sansa rolled his eyes. “He’s been a hopeless romantic since he was seventeen. He’ll get over Jeyne soon enough and the next thing you know there’ll be another gorgeous woman who’s hung the moon and the stars in the sky.”

”Look, I haven’t listened to any advice Robb has given me since the time he tried to convince me that the Long Bridge was an independent constitutional monarchy with a duly elected Bridge King just before my exam on Volantis political systems. The shit,” added Theon, amiably. “But he might just be right on this love thing,” he said softly, smiling down at Ros. “With the right person it’s pretty good.”

“It can be,” said Sansa cautiously. 

“Well,” said Theon and raised his glass at Sansa and Shae. “You’d know now,” he said and grinned. 

~ _ But I don’t,~ _ thought Sansa and nearly opened her mouth to say it, biting it back behind her teeth only with difficulty. 

She didn’t love Shae. She felt a deep affection for the Lorathi woman at her side, and it was reciprocated, but it wasn’t love and they both knew it. Shae would never let Sansa in, never let her have any more than the surface of her, the bright, lithe, clever dancer, who lived in the now. Shae had lost, long ago, the ability to feel anything deeply and that would never change. If something better for Shae came along, Sansa was fairly certain the woman would barely glance behind her as she left Sansa in her past. 

It was why they were together, if Sansa was honest. There was no risk to being with Shae, no need to try and trust her, no need for Sansa to make herself vulnerable. Sansa could learn to be affectionate again, not to flinch at someone's touch, to rediscover pleasure in herself and another, without ever having to feel deeply. She was with Shae precisely because she would never be in love with her. 

She couldn’t say it out loud. She couldn’t say it to Theon, who was smiling down at Ros with a face soft with love. He had learned, somehow, to find the courage within himself to love someone again and Sansa wasn’t going to diminish that. Maybe one day, she thought, she would let herself be that vulnerable again, open herself to the possibility of pain and sorrow that letting love in brought with it, but it wasn’t going to be with Shae. 

For a moment Sansa let herself imagine Theon looking at her with that look on his face, those ocean-blue eyes watching her with the warm intensity he turned now on Ros. Her stomach swooped, dropping like a bird in flight at the thought of it, of needing to open herself up to that much possibility, to make herself so vulnerable. 

She wasn’t ready for that, thought Sansa. Ready for anyone to look at her like that. 

Then other little words slipped into her mind, softly traitorous words from deep within her heart. That it wasn’t the thought of making herself so vulnerable that made her stomach swoop and fall at the thought of Theon loving her. It was the thought of having those ocean-blue eyes watch her in the way she wanted and now would never have. 

Then Sansa filled her head with other little words. It was impossible what she was thinking, just the wine and the warm weather and the cosy chat they were having making her think silly thoughts. She liked what she had now, what she had with Shae, her safe and gentle affection, and she was nothing but happy that Theon had finally found someone worth bestowing his battered heart upon. 

Sansa filled her head with little words, over and over, so by the time Catelyn called them all in to start lunch, the other words she had thought didn’t matter at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sudden quiet realisations about what your feelings might be are always a little startling. Sometimes it’s very much easier to pretend that you never had them. Both the realisation and the feelings.
> 
> I do enjoy this modern universe so much. Working out the way to tie all the pieces together. Also, Jon originally doing Law and then deciding he wants to become a vet post-romantic disappointment amuses me no end :)
> 
> Lyrics to All My Little Words
> 
> You are a splendid butterfly  
> It is your wings that make you beautiful  
> And I could make you fly away  
> But I could never make you stay  
> You said you were in love with me  
> Both of us know that that's impossible  
> And I could make you rue the day  
> But I could never make you stay  
> Not for all the tea in China  
> Not if I could sing like a bird  
> Not for all North Carolina  
> Not for all my little words  
> Not if I could write for you  
> The sweetest song you ever heard  
> It doesn't matter what I'll do  
> Not for all my little words  
> Now that you've made me want to die  
> You tell me that you're unboyfriendable  
> And I could make you pay and pay  
> But I could never make you stay  
> Not for all the tea in China  
> Not if I could sing like a bird  
> Not for all North Carolina  
> Not for all my little words  
> Not if I could write for you  
> The sweetest song you ever heard  
> It doesn't matter what I'll do  
> Not for all my little words  
> It doesn't matter what I'll do  
> Not for all my little words


End file.
